380 



HISTORY 



OF MEXICO. 



SECT. II. 



On the Population of Anahuac. 



WE do not propofe here to treat of the population 

 of all America ; that would be too large a fubjeft and 

 foreign to our purpofe ; but folely of that of Mexico 

 which belongs to this hiftory. There were and there 

 are in America, many populous countries, and there are 

 alfo vaft deferts ; and they are not lefs diftant from the 

 truth who imagine the countries of the new world as 

 populous as thofe of China, than they who believed 

 them as unpeopled as thofe of Africa. The calculation 

 of P. Riccioli is as uncertain as thofe of Sulimilch and 

 M. de Paw. Riccioli gives three hundred millions of 

 inhabitants to America. The political arithmeticians, 

 fay M. de Paw, do not reckon more than one hundred 

 millions. Sufimilch, in one part of his work, computes 

 them at one hundred, and in another at one hundred 

 and fifty millions. M. de Paw, who mentions all thefe 

 calculations, fays, there are not of real Americans more 

 than from thirty to forty millions. But we mufl repeat, 

 that all thofe calculations are moft uncertain as they are 

 not founded on any proper grounds ; for if we do not 

 know hitherto the population of thofe countries in 

 which the Europeans have eftabliihed themfelves, fuch 

 as thofe of Guatimala, Peru, Quito, Terra Firma, Chili, 

 who is capable of guefTmg the number of inhabitants 

 of the numerous countries little or not at all known ^to 

 the Europeans, fuch as thofe which are to the north 

 and north-weft of Coahuila, New Mexico, California, 

 and the river Colorado , or Red River, in Nor th- Ameri- 

 ca ? Who can number the inhabitants of the new 



world, 



